Leadership Lessons from Steve Jobs

This isn’t related to customer service as strictly as most of the other posts here on Service Untitled, but as I was typing this up, I figured I’d post it here because some folks might get some value out of it.

Like many people, I have a lot of respect for Steve Jobs and what he accomplished. I pre-ordered his biography as soon as it was announced and have read a lot about him and talked to people who have worked for him. When I saw this post on the Harvard Business Review blog, I liked that it summarized some of the more applicable leadership lessons and wanted to write some of them down.

Here’s my summary of the summary of what leadership lessons people can learn from Steve Jobs.

Focus:

Minimize the amount of products / services you offer.

Make three great products instead of 100 okay products.

Simplify:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

The best simplicity conquers rather than ignores complexity. In other words, true simplicity is more than removing clutter.

Asking “Do we need this?” about everything, even the things that seem obvious, is an exercise worth doing.

Take Responsibility End to End:

Seamless integration is an important part of simplicity.

It can be difficult to have a truly exceptional user experience without end-to-end responsibility for it. In other words, take responsibility for “the whole widget.”

When Behind, Leapfrog:

If you’re behind, make sure your next step puts you ahead instead of on par.